AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | Let us just stipulate for the time being that Scottie Scheffler is the most inevitable thing in golf at the moment.
When the major season turns to Valhalla next month for the PGA Championship, Scheffler will be the favorite and more than likely in contention. When it arrives in Pinehurst in June for the U.S. Open, Scheffler will be the favorite in the shadow of the World Golf Hall of Fame where he’ll eventually reside. When it heads overseas to Royal Troon in July for the Open Championship, Scheffler will be the man to beat.
Scheffler is on one of those rare golf rolls in which he is consistently leading or lurking. When he nearly holes out in the middle of a tight final round, the ground shakes and his challengers quake.
He never looked for one minute on any day last week at Augusta National like the man who wasn’t going to be wearing the green jacket and lifting the trophy at the end of Sunday before heading home to be a father.
Maybe parenting might slow him down. It’s doubtful.
Scheffler’s the big winner again. Here’s a breakdown of the rest from the Masters week:
BIRDIE: Ludvig Åberg. The 24-year-old Swede dubbed “the future world No. 1” by his Ryder Cup teammates looked perfectly comfortable as a major-championship debutante deftly trying to pull a Fuzzy at Augusta. Forgive him the rookie mistake of being too aggressive on 11, leading to a costly double. Get used to him being a contender in majors from now on.
BIRDIE: Press building announcer. The pronunciation of “foreign” names when called over the P.A. in the media center has long been an enjoyable tradition in phonetics unlike any other through the years. But “Ludvig Åberg is on his way to the interview room” was flawlessly executed on Sunday. Bravo.
BOGEY: Viktor Hovland. His smiles are dearly missed. Only eight months ago, the Norwegian seemed unbeatable in winning the FedEx Cup and Ryder Cup. Changing swing coaches hasn’t worked. But that missed back-hander on his three-putt from 3 feet on 15 illustrates the funk he’s in, requiring his second late-commitment WD of the season from Hilton Head to try to regroup.
BIRDIE: Max Homa. His first real sniff at winning a major (a distant T10 in the 150th Open was his previous best) was welcomed by anyone who loves his laid-back, Zen-like California cool to be prominent. “The rhetoric on me – and this is from myself, as well – is I have not performed in these things, and I performed for all four days,” Homa said. “I didn’t throw a 65 in there and sneak my way in. I had to sleep on this every single day, this feeling and kind of this monkey on my back. For me, I think it’ll change some things, and then in other ways it’ll change nothing at all.”
BOGEY: Greed. Nope, this isn’t about the outrageously long lines at the merchandise shop. Collin Morikawa cited being “greedy” as the reason he made two doubles in contention on Sunday to ruin his hopes. The day before, Bryson DeChambeau got greedy on 15 and derailed his run with a double as well, instead of trying to make birdie or par the conventional layup way. Greed kills at Augusta National.
BIRDIE: Tommy Fleetwood. His T3 now gives the 33-year-old Englishman a top-five slam in majors. It would be nice to see him finally win one.
PAR: Rory McIlroy. It is very much starting to look as if the Northern Irishman is never going to get that green jacket he so desperately wants. He’s 0-for-16, and all the scar tissue that started with his 2011 collapse keeps building, and all the talent between him and that career Grand Slam keeps growing as well. There’s no “deserve” at the Masters, as Ernie Els, David Duval and Johnny Miller (among others) can attest.
BIRDIE: Verne Lundquist. “Hello,” he said at the start of his goodbye call as the final pairing reached 16 and Scheffler delivered an exclamation-point tee shot to 9 feet. In our lives, we have been lucky to have Verne as a soundtrack for 40 Masters. Jim Nantz called his voice “a beautiful instrument” in his on-air tribute. “It’s my honor, my privilege,” Lundquist said as parting words. Yes, sir. It’s been an honor and privilege for all of us listening.
BOGEY: Justin Thomas. There were a lot of gruesome early exits on Friday (Brian Harman and Dustin Johnson, we’re looking at you), but JT’s was by far the most painful. A year after bogeying three of the last four holes to miss the cut and send his season into a tailspin, Thomas was level par and tied 16th with only four holes left in his second round. This time he went double-double-bogey-double to once again miss the cut by a shot. Maybe Bones could have helped settle him, maybe not.
BIRDIE: Tiger Woods. His magic no longer seems sustainable over four days, but full credit where it’s due for the bionic 48-year-old making it through the two hardest days Augusta may ever throw at these guys and comfortably making his Masters-record 24th consecutive cut. Woods survived a 23-hole day filled with carnage all around him and shooting level par 72 in the second round. Unfortunately, his 82 on Saturday was his worst score in 99 Masters rounds, and his 16-over last-place finish was his worst career score.
BOGEY: Jon Rahm. After a spectacular (by all reports) Champions Dinner, his week went downhill. It was poor form not stopping into the Golf Writers Association of America banquet Wednesday to say a brief thanks for his player-of-the-year award (Tiger Woods never skipped it no matter what was happening in his world). Then, Rahm teed off and never featured. The capper was complaining about the playability of the course on Friday after shooting higher (76) than the field average.
PAR: LIV competitors. Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith (shared sixth) and Patrick Reed T12 were fine efforts, but they did not come for the green jacket as Sergio García (MC) promised.
BOGEY: Greg Norman. The LIV commish was conspicuously walking around outside the ropes every day wearing a badge he scooped up off the secondary market. He told the Washington Post he was there to support his guys, none of whom apparently could spare one of their (up to 12 each) badges for their boss. Freddie Couples trolled Norman on Twitter about his boys not coming through for him: “Next year if you need one Shark let me know.”
DOUBLE BOGEY: Zach Johnson. The visuals haven’t been great for the 2007 Masters champion since last fall, when his Ryder Cup team got blown out in Rome. He jousted with fans in Phoenix, displayed old-boys favoritism in “Full Swing” season two and on Friday was caught on tape in Amen Corner screaming “Oh, —- off!” at patrons after some derisive cheers for his triple on 12. His attempted cover-up was worse. “That’s completely laughable,” he said when asked about what happened. As it seeped in that maybe he’d been caught, he said: “If I’ve said anything, which I’m not going to deny, especially if it’s on camera, one, I apologize, and two, it was fully directed towards myself entirely because I can’t hear anything behind me.”
BIRDIE: José María Olazábal and Phil Mickelson. On the respective 30th and 20th anniversaries of their breakthrough first Masters wins, they finished T45 and T43 as 10 of 18 past Masters champs made the cut (including 61-year-old Vijay Singh). “I enjoyed every bit of it, I have to say,” said Olazábal, 58. “It was a wonderful present to be able to play the weekend. … I wasn’t expecting to play good golf like I did this week.
BOGEY: Tyrrell Hatton. It’s fine – even welcomed – to snap about the horrendous pace of play, but it’s not remotely OK to spit in disgust on the 12th tee and 16th green in consecutive days. His Sergio impression continued when he declared “I’ve got no chance” at Augusta. Check back in future years (his T9 booked him a return next year) to see whether his tactics worked as well as they did for García.
BIRDIE: Neal Shipley. A weekend waltz to a low-amateur visit to the Butler Cabin was one thing, but getting to play with, talk to and beat Tiger Woods in the final round was heady stuff for the likable U.S. Amateur runner-up. “I think I have to win one of these things to kind of top this week,” he said.
BOGEY: Wyndham Clark. After a 73 in his Augusta debut round, the reigning U.S. Open champ was feeling frisky when he lobbed a jab at his former renegade suitors. “We’ve got 54 holes. In LIV Golf, they only play 54, so I like my chances,” he said. That’s 18 more holes than the 36 Clark finished after making seven bogeys in his last 13 holes the next day to miss the cut by a shot.
PAR: Augusta National. In case anyone was worried that the club has missed a step and softened too much in this modern world, along comes Jason Day on Friday morning to complete his first round in a garish Malbon zip that looked like a billboard advertisement. Before he turned around for round 2, the vulgar commercial top was gone after a discreet conversation with club officials. Gotta love ’em. Now about those Hammer pants, J-Day …
BIRDIE: TV ratings. After a dreadful season of consistent declines in golf viewership, the Masters proved to be the right tonic. ESPN reported a 28 percent spike in first-round ratings over the previous year (average of 3.2 million viewers, the highest opening round since 2015) and a 69 percent increase on Friday, with an average of 3.6 million viewers. And Caitlin Clark was nowhere on the grounds. “When we’re all back together, then golf thrives; when we’re divided, it doesn’t,” McIlroy said.
BIRDIE: Eclipse sunglasses. Leave it to the folks at Augusta National to ensure that its patrons don’t go blind when a nearly total solar eclipse coincides with Masters Monday. That was some quality protective eyewear they handed out to everybody.